On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment. After nearly a century of lobbying, marches, and protests, it was finally illegal to deny anyone the right to vote on the basis of sex.
This was a major step forward for equal voting rights in the United States, but it was not without its flaws. Some members of the suffrage movement had tried to exclude Black women from the Amendment's protection, and even after the passage of the 19th Amendment, the voting rights of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos continued to be suppressed, often violently.
Although the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to eliminate these practices, manipulation and other voter suppression techniques continue to threaten the right of all Americans to elective suffrage.
